Novelist

Weave interesting characters and plots together to write best sellers.

What does a Novelist do?

A Novelist writes novels, which are long stories. They’re long-form fiction, to be exact, which means they’re book-length stories that are fantasy, not fact.

In other words, if writing’s like running, an essay is a jog around the block, and a poem is the 50-yard dash. If you’re a Novelist, however, you’re running a marathon.

Although your job as a Novelist – authoring books – is straightforward, there’s more to it than words. Novel writing begins, for example, with brainstorming, which requires decisions about plot, characters, setting, conflict, and resolution. Because there’s lots of content to manage, you might “story map” your novel, developing a timeline of events, for instance, and writing character biographies so you can keep track of who, what, where, when, and why.

Although they’re fiction, the best novels feel real. After brainstorming, therefore, comes researching. If your novel’s about aliens or outer space, for instance, you’ll need to study astronomy. If you’re writing a story that takes place in the 1940s, on the other hand, you’ll need to study World War II.

Next, you’re ready to write. At least, you’d better be, because that’s how you’re going to spend your days: writing sentences, paragraphs, pages, and chapters, one word at a time. Ultimately, your goal is creating a , which you’ll accomplish with literary devices like metaphor and dialogue.

Like a Seamstress, you’ll have lots of loose threads. If you can overcome Writer ‘s block long enough to sew a story, however, your next step is editing and revising your manuscript for publication, then reading your published novel aloud on your very own book tour!